It's official now. The signs had been there for a while now. While the west bangs on about the importance of freedom and democracy, they don't actually want anyone to have too much of it. The US, France, and the UK have jointly pretty much declared war on freedom on the web.

It is effectively the same thing. If I am selling software, you have two options. You can buy it from me legitimately and pay me for it. Or you can obtain an illegal copy of it and not pay me for it. If you go that route, it's effectively no different than driving off from a gas pump without paying for the gas you pumped.

Okay, let's assume for a second that you made shirts instead, which are physical objects that can actually be stolen.

Theft : Someone comes in the factory at night, and comes back with the shirts. You can't sell them anymore, since you don't have them anymore.

Counterfeiting : Someone makes a factory next to yours that manufactures the same shirts for a lower price. You can still sell your shirts, but people won't buy them anymore because it's cheaper next door.

Counterfeiting : Someone makes a factory next to yours that manufactures the same shirts for a lower price. You can still sell your shirts, but people won't buy them anymore because it's cheaper next door. Which one is closer to piracy ? Theft, according to you ?

For legal purposes, I don't think the words "theft" and the word "piracy" have much difference. Again, the original definition of the word "piracy" referred specifically to theft carried out on the seas. To the best of my knowledge, this is still the only legal definition of the word "piracy" that is codified in the United Stated Code. It took on a secondary meaning with changing technology and culture.

I would also point out, that neither 17 U.S.C or 18 U.S.C, which are the sections of the United States Code dealing with copyright law, and copyright infringement, ever use the word "piracy" when referring to this crime. But they do use the word "theft".

So from a legal standpoint, if, they were manufacturing the exact same shirts I was, I would call it IP theft, or creativity theft, which are both terms used by the DOJ and the FBI to describe this type of crime.

Alright, so what is stolen is not a product but an intellectual property. We're getting there.

The authority argument "the DOJ and FBI use this naming convention" won't work here, since what I'm trying to show there is precisely that naming IP infringement theft is a big semantic mistake.

Intellectual property gives you some exclusive rights over a number of products, as an example the right to produce the aforementioned shirts. Do you agree that since your intellectual property is what gives you legitimity when producing the shirts, if your IP was stolen from you in the correct sense of the word (the robber gets it, and you don't have it anymore), you would lose the right to produce your shirts, while the robber would win the right to produce them ?